Arc the Lad 4: The Endeavor
by BitiumRibbon
Summary: [Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits] Diekbeck, the robot exleader of the UltraMech Squad and helpful hero from the battle with the Lord of the Black Abyss, awakens to find himself in a familiar place, but an unfamiliar time.
1. Part I

_Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits_

_The Endeavor, Part I_

Darkness. Everywhere was darkness. There wasn't any light. I couldn't see! What was going on? I didn't know. I could nearly feel the rust on my limbs, could nearly smell the stench of the oil leaking from the valves in my arms. But I couldn't. I never would. A robot can't smell. A robot can't feel.

But a robot can see! Why couldn't I see? Where was I?

There! There, I saw light! I saw a flash of light, just beyond my grasp! What was it? Where was it coming from? I tried to reach for the light, but I couldn't move my arms; I tried to run for it, but I couldn't move my legs. What was the light?

Wait! What was that? There, over there! _Kharg! _I thought._ It's you, Kharg! Isn't it? Darc! You're there, too! Paulette, Volk, Tatjana! You're all there!_ "I'm coming!" I tried to say, but there was not hint of a voice in my system, so all I could do was mouth the words, hoping they could hear me, my thoughts. But they were drifting away! And I could see it behind them! A giant eyeball, bigger than the moon! It was swallowing them up! "Wait!" I tried to say. "Wait, I can help you!"

But I realized I couldn't. I was trapped. My friends were getting lost in the ever-penetrating darkness, and I couldn't even call their names…

"NOOO!"

Suddenly, it all vanished. I could feel the sparks flying in my ocular circuitry, the oil pulsing through the tubes in my body. I could feel my memory banks trying to reawaken. What had I just been dreaming about? I couldn't remember, but my eyes… I could see!

"_Reactivation process complete,_" said the disembodied voice inside my head. I remembered now. That voice which told me everything. The monitor of my vital circuitry, the exterior sensor alerts… I was completely reactivated! I was back!

And I was sitting amid a pile of junk.

Normally, during deactivation, my legs would fold underneath my torso unit and my arms would be in normal resting position in front of me. But here I was, sprawled on the dirty ground, in no particular position whatsoever.

I slowly got up, taking care to brush off the dust that had accumulated on my motionless form. And then I wondered about that. How long had I been inactive?

"_Thirty years, four months, six days, seventeen-point-four hours,_" said that voice in my head, and I nearly fell back over. Thirty years? Why had I been deactivated in the first place? And why had I been out for thirty years? What had happened?

"_Error. Refine inquiries._"

I cursed out loud at the voice in my head, having forgotten how annoying it could sometimes be. Then I cursed again. It was good to hear the sound of my own voice for a change. _Now, how do I shut off the internal voice?_ I thought.

The answer came almost instantly. "_Internal vocal protocol shut-off control located in front breastplate._" Finally, the damned thing was being useful. I opened up the plate and flicked one of the switches. "_Internal vocal protocol deactivated._"

I let out the closest sound I was capable of making to a sigh of relief. Now to figure out what I was doing here, and what had happened. I searched my memory banks, looking for any relevant information. What was the last thing I remembered?

A tower… yes, that's right. A tall tower, and at the top, five large stones, each a different colour. A desert, a wasteland, all I could see for miles from the top of the tower. Strange. I remembered the places, but what had happened there?

But it wasn't over. A large, black palace, with many floors. A steady climb. A giant doorway, which led to…

Darkness! Utter darkness! Where was it coming from? Where was I now? I remembered being in what looked like the belly of a beast. Veins pulsated in all the walls and below the very surface upon which I was standing. And a giant tree, and a girl trapped inside. And then…

And then I remembered.

I screamed aloud as it all came back to me. Kharg and Darc, Paulette, Maru, Ganz and Tatjana! And the Deimos! The Lord of the Black Abyss! It all came flooding back to me through my memory banks, and I nearly fell over once again. "Kharg!" I yelled. "Kharg, where are you?" I spun around, searching my surroundings for any sign of them. "Paulette! Maru! Where are you all? Ganz! Tatjana!"

There came no answer. I finally gave up, sitting down, with my legs folded inside my torso. I had a name. I remembered that. I had a name. _What was my name? _I thought. _What was my function?_

Diekbeck. That was my name. My function? I had a function, long ago. I didn't remember. What was my function with the humans and the Deimos? We had to find the Great Spirit Stones, we had to defeat the Lord of the Black Abyss. We did. Didn't we?

I tried to remember what happened after that. We fought the Lord of the Black Abyss. We pulled out all the stops. He had other eyeballs, too, that were attacking us. He turned his dark beam on us. But we won. But why? He was still powerful.

But the Great Spirits came. They came and banished the Lord of the Black Abyss, sealing him away for all eternity. We beat him! He wouldn't ever return again!

And then the palace began to fall. The others ran, and I tried to, and then the floor shook. I fell backward, losing my balance. I hit the wall, and my ocular circuitry went awry. I tried to get up, and I fell back again. I remember the girl… Choco. I remembered that she came and tried to help me. We almost made it back to the door and out of the palace…

And then…

I shook my head as I tried to remember. We were there, we were at the door, and nearly out of the accursed palace, and then it sank! The palace sank below the water! Choco and I were trapped in the ruins underwater! But it wasn't over, still. The palace exploded! I screamed again as I remembered. I flew from the palace, and I remembered falling all the way back down to land…

Here.

I stopped searching my memory banks and brought my ocular sensors back online. So this was where I fell. I landed here, in the – where was I? I looked around again. Ruins. I saw an old, abandoned box with glass in the front; a television, my databanks told me. Similar old relics lay strewn about in no particular order. The Parenz Ruins. I wasn't far from Sulphas. Or, at least, I thought I wasn't far from Sulphas.

Then I looked up, and gasped. The sky was a dark green, with eerie black clouds floating about. What had happened to the sky? I looked around myself again, and saw things in more detail. The ground was charred, the old equipment among the ruins damaged, with pieces falling off and – I looked closer – melted together in some areas. A green mist was floating from the dirt. I ejected my wrist scanner and examined it; radiation! The ground was drenched with radioactivity. What kind of catastrophe could have caused this?

I went to the entrance of the ruins, looking as far into the distance as I could see. All the ground was spurting that same green radioactive mist, and the highways were all but destroyed. I could see Sulphas in the distance, but it was not the same as I remembered it. The buildings were smouldering piles of rubble. The roads had giant craters in them. I couldn't see many details from where I was, but my bet was that nobody – human or Deimos – lived there anymore.

I was alone.

I turned around again, and was assaulted with another flash of memories. Sitting in typical deactivation position was a replica of myself, except this "me" was totally silver. I thought back; I hadn't seen this robot in years, not since the time of the Ultra-Mech Squad. His name: Ziekbeck. He had been a member of the Squad, and I'd been his leader. He was a shy one, this robot, a design flaw that our creator had overlooked when adding personality circuitry. But he was social enough, and a good fighter.

I walked over to him, noting the rust on his body. It was only then that I realized how rusted I was; I made a mental note to fix that problem later. For now, my priority was to revive Ziekbeck. Maybe he could tell me what had happened.

I clanked over and crouched next to him, examining him. He was in bad shape; the total shutdown sequence had been initiated some time ago, and he now had about as much life left in him as a rock. I opened up his front frame, checking the switches. _Auto-reactivation, _I thought, looking for the switch. I found it, near the bottom corner of the panel. Sure enough, it had been set to "Off." I flipped it, but I had no way of knowing what would happen. As far as I knew, he'd been inactive since the end of the Ultra-Mech era. I sat back, looking for some sign of life in him.

Then I heard a clanking sound from inside him, and I jumped back up. I saw his arms twitch and his legs began to move inside him. I looked at the switches again, noting that the Internal Vocal Protocol was also set to "Off." No matter; he'd wake up one way or another.

Soon, his eyes opened with a creak, and he stood. I could nearly see the sparks flying in his mechanical brain. He looked down, closing his front panel. And then he looked up at me. His eyes opened up wide as he began to recognize who I was. And then, in a creaky voice that obviously hadn't been used in years, he spoke.

"Diekbeck? Is that you?"

If I'd been able, I would have smiled. "Yes, it's me."

He looked around himself. "Still in the Parenz Ruins… How long have I been inactive?"

"As far as I can tell," I said, "you've been down since the Squad was decommissioned."

"No, no," he said, "I remember when they deactivated us, but I've woken up since then. Humans… Humans!" he said, sitting down again. He was checking his memory banks, I knew, and I kept quiet.

Finally, he spoke again. "I was reactivated once before… I don't know how long ago, but I was reactivated when my proximity sensors detected humans in the vicinity. They didn't notice me for a while. But I remember that before that, I was with the rest of the Ultra-Mechs, they were shutting us down. I still don't know how I got from there to here."

He closed his eyes as he tried to remember, but finally shook his head. "No, I don't know. But the humans… they discovered me! They found me sitting here, so I pretended to be inactive. But they didn't go away! I finally… well, I couldn't sit there and do nothing. So I pretended I was… I was _you_."

He sighed. "They didn't believe me, though. I thought I was convincing enough… But they didn't go away. So I had to give them something so they'd go away. What did I give them? I don't remember…" He shut his eyes again, and then opened them wide. "The Talisman! The Shadow Talisman you gave me! I was desperate! I didn't know what else to do… I'm sorry, Diekbeck."

But I was reaching into my storage compartment, rummaging around inside for something. When I finally pulled it out, his eyes opened wide again; I was holding the very same Shadow Talisman. "Where did you get it?" he said.

I put it back in the compartment. "I was traveling with some humans. They found me in Cathena."

"Cathena?" he said. "Did you see any of the other Ultra-Mechs?"

I shook my head. "None of them were there. From what I could tell when we left, the only thing left standing since the Squad times was the arena. Everything else was different. It wasn't the same Cathena that you and I were built in. And those humans…" I turned away. "Those humans didn't know what I was. They had me as a prize to be won in the arena. So I kept quiet. They all thought I was a piece of rare junk. So I listened in when they were talking, and I caught things like Deimos feuds and human rivalry. Something was going on, and I felt it was my job to stop it. So I figured I'd let myself be won, and then escape after I was taken out of the arena.

"But the humans who – ahem – "won" me were different. They had the same goal I did. So I fought with them. And we won… or so I thought."

His eyes were wide again. "The Divine Ruler?"

"Worse," I replied. I told him the story of the Lord of the Black Abyss, about Lilia, and Darc and Kharg, and everything that had happened since Cathena, including its obliteration by Darkham.

"Chances are," I said when I finished, "that none of the humans or Deimos are alive now. Something bad has happened here. I was hoping you'd know what it was."

The top of his torso unit that served as his head rotated from side to side, the Ultra-Mech equivalent of a head-shake. "This is as much news to me as it is to you. I don't even know how long I've been inactive."

"Probably around the same as me, if the humans you met were the same ones I fought with," I said. "I've been offline for thirty years."

He sighed. "So much can happen in thirty years. Do you think it had anything to do with the end of Spirit magic?"

I looked down. "I don't know anything right now, but I plan to find out." I turned away from him, checking the gun on my arm to make sure it was functioning. "How are your weapons?" I said to Ziekbeck.

He raised his hands, and presently a pair of sleek metal blades shot from the tops of his wrists. "A little dull, but they'll work," he said, and clanked over to join me at the entrance to the ruins. "Do you think we'll need them?"

I looked out at the remains of Sulphas, so far away. I thought about all the humans, and even some of the Deimos. I thought about Choco and what might have happened to her when the flying castle exploded. I thought about what could have turned our planet into such a wasteland.

"I don't know," I finally said, "but something tells me that this is deeper than humans, Deimos, or Spirit magic. We're eventually going to find out what's going on. And I want to be ready when we do."

I stared out into the green sky and the black clouds. I wondered for the umpteenth time what had happened. And then, as I kept staring into the distance, Ziekbeck by my side, I wondered if I'd want to know the answer.

There was a long road ahead.

_To Be Continued…_


	2. Part II

_Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits_

_The Endeavor, Part II_

Sulfas awaited Ziekbeck and I in a grim state. We walked along the ruined highways, some still lucky enough to be recognizable. We passed trucks, other vehicles, none of which we could recognize. The ones that still had paint on them were a dull red, and they were all very military in style.

It did not bode well.

"Lots of military trucks," Ziekbeck commented beside me. I glanced at him, and then back at the trucks. Some of the cabs still had human skeletons in them. We hadn't yet seen any Deimos.

"Yeah," I said. "Not familiar, though."

He shook his head. "Still a heck of a lot more than I remembered. Something bad happened around here."

We continued along the roads until Sulfas winked into view in the distance. There was nothing alive in our path, not even plants. We were literally surrounded by death. It was depressing, and it didn't help answer my questions. From what we could see, Sulfas was now nothing more than a trash heap, much like the Parenz Ruins. I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to find out why.

Another hour's walking brought us to the ruined little city. The metal ground was the only part of the place that hadn't changed. Everything else was gone. Nothing I remembered was left standing. There was no sign of anyone, not even the ex-General Spencer. All that remained of his hideout and the bar that led to it was a heap of concrete and sediment.

But that wasn't what caught my eye.

Ziekbeck said it for me. "It was occupied. Martial law."

I nodded. The same red army trucks that we'd seen on the highway were parked at the entrance, and there were remains of roadblocks throughout the wide streets and among the city. I remembered Kharg telling me about the Dilzweld occupation of Sulfas, and this sight certainly seemed reminiscent.

The only difference being that nothing was alive.

Ziekbeck stepped daintily around a charred skeleton, glancing around. "There's nothing left here, Diekbeck. What can we do?"

I looked once more around myself, and then at the sky. "The volcano…" I said quietly, watching a huge column of thick smoke rising from its crater. It wasn't ordinary smoke, though. It was a bright green colour, nearly matching that of the sky. "Maybe something at the volcano can tell us what happened."

He inclined his torso, the Ultra-Mech equivalent of a nod. "Yeah. I don't like the looks of it."

We turned back toward the city's entrance. It looked even worse from the inside out. We headed back across the town, from the old rebel hideout. It was really eerie, being in the midst of what had once been such a bustling little city.

We passed what had been the weapon parts and accessories shop, and I crouched down and picked up a very old can of sapphire coating. I looked it over. "It's still intact," I said. "That's odd." I then passed it to Ziekbeck, who sprayed a liberal amount of it onto his wrist-blades.

"Thanks," he said. "These things haven't been used in… I don't even remember the last time I had to use them. Back in the Squad days, I guess."

I nodded. "Feel out of practice?"

"No," he said. "I could never forget how to use these." He slashed them around a few times, helping to dry the coating he'd applied.

"Good," I replied. "You might have to."

We once again headed for the exit. I kept an eye open for other items of value. Part of my mind was tempted to look for spirit stones, but then I remembered that there was no longer anything to use them for.

Then I glanced at another truck, and stopped dead. Ziekbeck bumped headlong into me, and stumbled back. "What is it? Diekbeck?"

I pointed. The rubble of one of the military trucks was nearby, and the name on this one was still intact. It read, "Dilzweld Army."

"The Dilzweld…" I said quietly. "That's what must have happened."

Ziekbeck looked. "You think they came back?"

"I think they did more than that. From the looks of it, they took over. I think…" I paused. "I think they're responsible for all this."

"But…" He looked uneasy. "I thought you told me Darkham was…"

"He was," I said. "I was there when he died. I think someone else came to power in the Dilzweld Empire." I looked around myself. "When I first reactivated, I did a quick analysis of the ground. It was radioactive."

"Radioactive?" he repeated. "How is that possible? There hasn't been any _hint _of radiation since…" He paused. "The Ultra-Mech days…"

"Exactly. History's beginning to repeat itself." I looked back toward the town's entrance. "If I'm right, we're already too late. The technological advances that our people made back in the Squad days look like they've come back. Last time, the world barely managed to heal itself. This time…" I looked at the sky. "This time, I don't know if it can."

He shook his head. "We can't accept that. There's got to be some way to change things."

I started walking again. "Then let's go to the volcano. I still feel like we're missing a piece of the puzzle."

We walked, side by side, out of Sulfas and back onto the ruined, pockmarked highway, trying not to look back.

I'd never made a point of visiting the volcano before, but I was sure that it had never looked the sight that I saw as I walked among the rubble of the old Dilzweld base.

The ghastly green smoke loomed thick over our heads as Ziekbeck and I ascended. I'd expected the heat to be stifling, but according to my temperature indicators, it was even cooler up here than down in Sulfas. That didn't seem right to me.

Ziekbeck said aloud what I'd been thinking. "I think my temperature indicators are off."

I shook my head. "No, I'm getting the same readings, I think. It's much too cool for a volcano."

We climbed up the ramp, eyeing the surroundings. Kharg had told me, a long time ago, about their raid on this base to rescue the rebels. He'd told me that they'd destroyed the two giant cannons with the _Big Owl_'s lasers. I was thus very surprised to see not two, but three enormous guns mounted about the base. They were little more than piles of rubble with barrels projecting out of them, but they certainly weren't the same obliterated guns that Kharg had told me of.

"So the Dilzweld rebuilt the mountain stronghold," I said. "Improved the defenses, too."

Ziekbeck looked at me, confused, and I explained what Kharg had told me. "Wow," he said, "those humans were more powerful than I thought."

I nodded, and looked back to the mess. "Those ramps over there lead to the interior of the mountain. We should take a look."

We headed up, through the rubble of the doorway and into the volcano. We walked along, through the cavern. The green smoke was still thick, and my sensors detected a high level of toxicity in the air. The crater was alive with poisonous gas.

"Nothing alive in here," I said. "It's not possible."

Beside me, Ziekbeck nodded. "True. But the temperature is still abnormal. I wonder why that is."

We got our answer a few seconds later. We'd walked a few more paces before I felt the texture beneath my feet change. I took another step, heard a soft splashing sound. Then I looked down.

The cavern's dirt floor was flooded.

"What's all this?" Ziekbeck said. I couldn't even answer. The interior of the volcano was quite literally flooded. We were standing in water an inch deep, and walking forward, we felt the ground slope dramatically, leading to deeper water. Whatever pathways had been here before the eruption were long gone, but as opposed to a lava-filled crater, all that was left was an impossible lake that stretched as far as we could see.

Ziekbeck crouched, dipping a sensor into the pool. "It's pure," he said, surprised. "The water's pure."

"Pure?" I looked at him, and then stooped to dip one of my own sensors into the water. "You're right… It's perfectly drinkable."

"How, though? The air's full of toxic gas, and yet there's nothing wrong with the water. That makes no sense to me."

"Me neither," I replied, "but I'm planning on finding out."

I then heard a soft roar from some distance away, and I spun around, gun at the ready. Ziekbeck's blades shot once more from his wrists, and he stood poised to strike. "What was that?" he said.

"It came from the other end of the lake," I replied. "It was alive, whatever it was. Let's check it out."

We followed the water's edge around the crater. An old, charred plank from a walkway that had been destroyed by the eruption thirty years ago floated by us, but otherwise everything was still.

I looked down into the water as we edged along. Far deeper down, I could see the corpses of Deimos buried under the unnatural lake. Lakeltas, for the most part, but there were some other creatures down there that I couldn't name.

The edge of the lake we were following eventually widened into a broad plateau that rose above the water level. I stepped onto the damp, reddish dirt, checking once again that my gun was armed.

The green gas was much thicker here, and I could barely see three feet in front of me. I was alert for any sign of movement as I slowly walked forward, waving the gas away with my right hand. Both Ziekbeck and I tried to make as little sound as possible, but I was sure that our rusty joints were creaking somewhat, as much as I was praying they wouldn't.

We heard the roar again, piercing the air, but we kept going, slowly and silently. The roar sounded familiar, but I had no way of placing what it was. I kept creeping along, as did Ziekbeck beside me, knives at the ready.

And then we finally saw the creature. "My God," said Ziekbeck. "What on Earth _is _that?"

Meanwhile, I'd lowered my weapon. "It's the Pyron."

"The what?"

I didn't reply. I could see it quite clearly now, the fur of flame attached to its long, cone-shaped frame, and the many weak legs dangling toward the ground. This creature had been Darc and the Deimos' equivalent of Kharg's airship.

"I can't believe it's still alive," I said. "I had no idea Pyrons were this resistant to airborne toxins."

Ziekbeck's wrist blades zipped back into his wrists. "I had no idea what a Pyron was to begin with. How exactly do you know about this thing? And what is it, anyway?"

I reached out tentatively to pet the creature. It didn't shy away at my touch. "I'm not exactly sure," I said, "but I know they're capable of flight and can grow or shrink to meet the needs of their environment."

Ziekbeck walked to my side. "Then, couldn't it help us find out what's going on?"

"We could theoretically fly over to Halshinne and take a look around the old Dilzweld Empire," I replied, "but Pyrons need to be near fresh water and there's only one oasis on that entire continent, as far as I know." I turned to him. "Even if it's still there, it'll mean a lot of walking."

He scoffed. "My joints have had more than thirty years of rest. It's time I gave them a little exercise anyway."

I nodded, and then turned back to the Pyron, whereupon I realized that I didn't know how to communicate with it. "Er… can you understand what I'm saying?" I asked it feebly.

The frontal portion of the creature's body bobbed up and down, a gesture I took to mean 'yes.'

"Okay," I said, "then can you take us to Halshinne?"

At this, the Pyron shrank away, drifting over to the water. Puzzled, I walked over to it. "I don't think it wants to go there," I said to Ziekbeck.

The Pyron made a gesture similar to a shake of the head.

Ziekbeck followed. "Looks like your hunch was right, Diek. Halshinne must have gotten the worst of whatever happened here."

"Yeah." I turned back to the Pyron. "If you take us to Halshinne, you don't have to stay," I said. I was feeling somewhat silly talking to the animal like this, but it didn't seem as if I had much choice. "You can return here, or go somewhere else. It is important that we get to Halshinne, and you're the only one that can get us there."

The Pyron took a drink from the curious lake, and then turned back toward me. After a few moments, it made its nodding motion again.

"Good," I said, patting its back. Then I turned to Ziekbeck. "Come on," I said. "It's time we found out what's been going on here."

He performed his Ultra-Mech nod, and joined me at the Pyron's side. It wasn't long before we were holding firmly to its back and soaring out of the volcanic crater, headed across the eerie green sky to the desert continent of Halshinne.


End file.
